Friday, June 4, 2010

What's so bad about living and working in Mexico?

I'm working in Arizona for the next couple of weeks.
There are some great folks out here. Unfortunately, some of them aren't legal.
(The more I think about it, calling someone an illegal is kinda like the old days when we used to call some children illegitimate.)

Arizona has decided to enforce the laws that are already on the books at the Federal level.

This has pissed off the Statists, since they generally rely on Hispanic votes.
This has motivated the Republicans, since they generally favor Law'n'Order, unless it's the laws that the ACLU supports.
Most all of which frustrates the libertarians, who generally favor clogging the Rio Grande with copies of the tax code, import/export documents, Nancy Pelosi's autobiography, and let everyone who wants to do so walk into Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas on dry paper.

President Barack Obama emerged Thursday from a meeting with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer proclaiming limited progress on the immigration issue that divides them, but sticking to his opposition to her state's controversial immigration bill.

Here's the rub: Say that someone is arrested in Virginia or Maryland. The person has no identification. Fingerprints reveal that the arrestee is here illegally from, say, Lichtenstein. Should the Virginia or Maryland authorities deport the person, as the existing laws say they should, or should they release him? Is there anything more to it than this?

"I've told Governor Brewer that we've already put more resources into border security than we ever have," Obama told CNN's Larry King in an interview to air at 9 p.m. Thursday.

"Resources" is one of those words that makes my bullshit detector go off. (Another is "persons" used in place of the perfectly good word "people".) In spite of the resources, people are still coming across by the thousands. Daily.

"We have got more border guards in Arizona than we ever have. We just made decisions to put in additional National Guards. But without comprehensive immigration reform -- that is Congress' responsibility -- we are not going to solve this problem and that's what we have to do."

Barry, Barry, Barry....what part of the situation needs "reform"? (That's another word that is starting to alarm me. I've written elsewhere about icebergs being used as "Titanic reform".)
Do we need to tighten up the existing policy of DON'T CROSS THE DAMN RIVER WITHOUT PAPERS?
Or do we need to let people come here to work and contribute to the economy by creating and consuming?
Pick one. Just saying reform reform reform reform isn't working.

....Although I understand the frustration of the people of Arizona when it comes to the inflow of illegal immigrants (saith the Teleprompter), I don't think this is the right way to do it. I think this puts American citizens who look Hispanic, are Hispanic, potentially in an unfair situation."More importantly, he said, "it also creates the prospects of 50 different laws in 50 different states when it comes to immigration."

(Note to the Teleprompter Programmer: Barry is supposed to be a constitutional law perfesser. Do some reading on the 10th Amendment, or people are going to start questioning your typing skills. 50 different laws in 50 different states is what most of The Founders hoped for. Well, 13 different laws in 13 different states. You get the idea, I'm sure, even if Barry doesn't. As long as the Feds don't distort the process, it's the best way to find out which policies are best. Just think if every state had identical laws and policies, and they all had to match.....California's.)

So here are the big questions that no one is asking.
The Teleprompter can say reform reform reform until it shorts a circuit. The U.S. can continue building bigger and better useless fences. The Republicans can hold rallies. The Democrats can hold hands and march in solidarity with their oppressed brethren. But is anyone, anyone at all, asking why the U.S. is so much better than Mexico? Is anyone asking what's wrong with Mexico? And if we know the answer, are we doing anything to ensure that we don't make the same mistakes as Mexico?